"Striking" AIDS Statistics Among Iranian Teenagers
The head of the Iranian AIDS Research Center says that fear of poor education and poor information in education have increased the number of AIDS cases among adolescents. Minoo Mahrez recommends using social media to raise public awareness.
Until a few years ago, 97% of AIDS patients in Iran were men, but with the tenfold increase in the number of women infected, the ratio of men to women has become closer. Minoo Mahrez, head of the AIDS Research Center, said: "The number of AIDS patients in men was higher than women, but after the AIDS disease was controlled among injection drug users and the harm was reduced in this area, the existing epidemic, as is usual in other countries, shifted towards transmission through sexual contact, which is why the number of women infected with AIDS has increased."
He reminds us that prostitution and promiscuity are not the cause of the tenfold increase in AIDS among women; rather, establishing legitimate and normal contacts between infected people increases the spread of AIDS.
This member of the Academy of Medical Sciences considers the inefficiency and weakness of information sources to be the main factor in the spread of AIDS in Iran, and complains about the poor performance of the Iranian Broadcasting Organization and various radio networks.
Minoo Mahrez suggests using cyberspace to raise public awareness about AIDS. She criticizes the silence and poor approach of education to raising awareness among adolescents, saying that when we talk to adolescents with AIDS, they express ignorance about how to communicate and how the disease spreads: "Unfortunately, some people believe that educating adolescents and informing them about AIDS is bad education and will have other consequences, which is why they prefer not to talk about it, but the problem is that not addressing this dangerous disease causes adolescents to enter into risky relationships without knowing it, and the result is that, unfortunately, the number of AIDS cases among adolescents has also increased significantly, but despite this, education officials always prefer to remain silent and deny this important issue, which is very destructive."
Many citizens do not visit centers that have been set up in cities for free AIDS testing. The head of the AIDS Research Center says there is no other way to identify those infected and people are not willing to get tested due to lack of awareness about high-risk behaviors. Some people are “afraid of being stigmatized and misjudged.”
A member of the Iranian Academy of Medical Sciences expressed regret that public ignorance about AIDS has left families vulnerable to the disease: "Unfortunately, people who have been married for many years and have grown children are now contracting AIDS."
Minoo Mahrez said that among the administrative organs and agencies, only the Ministry of Health has done its job properly in the field of AIDS. He reminded that the AIDS problem is not just a health issue and that social problems also contribute to the spread of this problem: "Thirty years have passed since the AIDS epidemic, and if other agencies had cooperated and taken action, we would have been in a better situation and would have been ahead."
At the 7th National AIDS Seminar in Iran, the number of people infected with AIDS was announced at 66,000. Most patients are between the ages of 25 and 40, and the main way the virus is transmitted since two years ago is through sexual contact.
Source: DW
